Skibbereen
by Banta
Summary: Post-Reichenbach. Sherlock is wrapping up his three-year hiatus when he runs into someone who makes him question whether or not he wants to go back to London after all, and what's been changing in his absence. John will be in later chapters.
1. The Blonde Plait

Sherlock stumbled into the pub with his hands shoved in his pockets, wiping the blood off on the lining of his pants. At three in the afternoon, the place was nearly empty and the few patrons that were there didn't spare him a glance. A blonde at the bar looked up with mild interest and crinkled her brow in confusion when her eyes met his. This happened less and less often as the general public began to forget the funny looking man in the plaid hat. Despite the media frenzy that Moriarty's trial and Sherlock's suicide had generated, there existed of Sherlock only several blurred, unflattering pictures. For this he was grateful. As soon as he broke eye contact with the blonde he caught her turning back to her crossword puzzle and, satisfied that he had not been recognized, he settled on the opposite end of the bar. With his hair shorn short and several small, purpling bruises around his mouth and across the bridge of his now crooked nose, he was fairly certain that there were maybe two or three people on earth who would be able to spot him in a crowd. Not that it mattered at this point. The last of Jim Moriarty's extensive network was fading away in a bathtub in a house down the road, and he wouldn't around for very much longer. Sherlock smiled at his watch. _About two more minutes. _Of course, there was still Moran, but he no longer seemed to be interested in carrying out Moriarty's dying wish…Sherlock had seen him board a plane to Mumbai two months before, and his worldly possessions followed shortly after.

Sherlock felt the way he did after any case, except that this one had lasted three years. _Three years. Really?_ And this one had not contained any _real_ mysteries. Only impossibly long, cold, bored nights in hostels and squats and camped out in the apartments of hit men. The bartender raised his eyebrows at him impatiently.

"Right, sorry…are you still serving lunch?" Sherlock gave his hands a final wipe on his jacket and rested them on the counter as casually as he could manage.

"We amn't. I can get you crisps and, er, buttered toast. If ya like."

"Perfect. I'll have ten bags of crisps and half a loaf, dry. Try to burn it slightly." Sherlock struggled to remember what he was meant to say to get the bartender to stop staring at him. "If you don't mind."

He sat in silence for a good half hour after his food arrived, steadily finishing off the toast and opening his first bag. The last few days had been particularly brutal…he barely tasted any of it, simply tearing it into pieces and chewing it systematically. The pub was filling up, and the blonde at the end of the bar was still staring at him every ten minutes or so. Sherlock stood and made for the exit before she could work up the nerve to approach him, but a carrying voice stopped him just steps from the door. It was a young man, unemployed, recently moved back to his hometown to live with his elderly parents. They were sick. He had spent at least one night at one of their bedsides. Sherlock could smell the hospital as he passed him, and there was the imprint of course fabric fading on the man's right cheek. He had sat down beside the blonde woman and was beginning to impress upon her the stress of being a top surgeon. Sherlock looked at the woman for the first time; she had shrunken away from her admirer, who was maybe five or six years younger than herself, and her crossword puzzle was only a quarter-filled. So she was either an idiot or an alcoholic. He was able to resist interrupting her ordeal for a second or two.

"Gay."

He had only muttered it, but both the woman and the younger man looked up.

"Whatcha mean then? Thas rude as hell."

Sherlock surveyed him coldly. "Is it? It's true."

The woman suppressed a smile, and rolled her eyes at the would-be suitor. "He's right. I'm gay…and taken." She pulled out a chain with an engagement ring from under her blouse, waving at him somewhat obnoxiously and laughing as he grumbled away.

Sherlock was about to step out at last, when she pulled him onto the stool next to hers.

"How did you figure that? Am I so obvious?"

"Not to someone like him. Or anyone else in this pub."

"But it is to you."

"Well," he sniffed haughtily and smirked, "it _should_ be obvious to everyone."

"Hmm," she leaned back, arms crossed, "show me."

It had been too long.

"You have a French plait."

The woman snorted and played with the end of her plait doubtfully. "Well done."

"You have a French plait, _but_ the double knots in your shoelaces say that your fingers aren't particularly nimble, says that the braid was done by a friend. Fairly intimate, you washed your hair last night and it was braided this morning at eight, no, _seven_. Very early to be seeing a friend. So it was either a family member or a romantic partner. Statistical likelihood says they're female, and your age and clothing say that it's not a relative. A mother or aunt would be too elderly to manage the small intricacies of the braid, and the quality of your clothing implies that you do not require the generosity of a relative. Nearly forty, you wouldn't need a roommate either. You're not dressed for business _or_ leisure, and it's a weekday in March, so you're clearly not here temporarily, which might have explained you staying with a sister or close friend."

Sherlock might have overdone it. The woman was narrowing her eyes in a vaguely familiar way. She reminded him of someone, and he reminded her of someone as well. Things were growing entirely too uncomfortable.

"All of that is…circumstantial. Who's to say I'm not just a very careful person who double knots her laces and plaits her own hair?"

"I really should be going."

She gripped his wrist, and he caught her eyes darting to the blood encrusted under his nails. "No, go on. Please."

She had said please. "It's your perfume. You're wearing two scents…you showered last night, so it's not yesterday's leftovers. One is the one you put on this morning, and the other is the one your partner was wearing last night when the two of you had sexual relations. Bleu de Chanel and Calvin Klein…something. I forget the name of that one. Both perfumes marketed to women."

He knew he had gone too far. He knew it the moment her eyes widened and she jerked away. And he definitely knew it the moment she clapped her hands to her mouth and whispered, "_You're Sherlock Holmes."_

Sherlock barely had time to mutter "obviously" before Harry Watson threw her punch.


	2. Grave Digging

**I have to base some of Harry's character on her posts on John's blog, although I like to think she's not good at internet stuff, since she comes off as a bit stupid there. I like her cursing habit though, so I've kept that in. Thanks for everyone who's subscribed to the story! I'll try to keep it interesting. John may or may not be in the next chapter, depending on how long it runs. I'm going to have to switch it over to his perspective at some point, because writing Sherlock is so damn difficult.**

"I'd say I'm sorry, but I'm still trying to get my head around all this," Harry Watson fumbled with her cigarette, "I'm still not sure that I _am_ sorry."

They were sitting on a garden divider in the middle of the road, just outside the pub. Harry lit her cigarette and offered one to Sherlock.

"No, I'm not—" Sherlock cut himself off and took it anyway. After a long moment in which the two of them silently drew smoke in, he glanced at the low wall they were sat upon, which encircled a tiny grouping of trees. "Why would anyone in their right mind put a tree in the middle of the road?"

Harry shrugged. "It's a small town. There are, what, five cars parked? Boring as hell."

"So what are you doing here?"

She gave him a dark look. "Is that really the question you want to be asking? I could ask you what you're doing _anywhere_ other than six feet under."

He scratched the back of his head with some irritation. No, that wasn't the right question. The right question would be something more like 'what are you going to tell John' or 'how is John' or even 'do you want to go back to London with me and explain things to John'. It didn't matter though. These 'right' questions were not the ones floating through his head. _Is the blood in my hair mine? _was closer to what was.

"I mean, I only recognized you by how fucking irritating you were in the pub there. John used to…" There was a slight catch in her voice, as though she were recalling the dearly departed. "Well, you know. I read his blog. And I saw you that once, when you dropped John off at my flat."

"I remember," Sherlock's lips twitched into something close to a smile, "that was when you were lying to him about your drinking."

She ignored that. Just as well. "You looked quite a bit different, though. You don't…hmm. You look like you're going to murder someone." This did earn her an actual smile—for some reason, she shivered in response.

"Most people would say I always look like that."

"Yeah, sure, but that was more 'Bond villain'. Like what's-his-name, your Moriarty fellow," Harry said around her cigarette, "but this is more 'serial killer on the loose'. More 'escaped mental patient'."

She noted the look of distaste on Sherlock's face, and hastened to correct herself.

"No, I don't mean it that way! I'm sure it's very difficult, being dead and all." She leaned over and rubbed her thumb along his cheekbone. "This bruise was my fault anyway. The rest of them…"

Sherlock knew exactly what she meant. He knew that he did not look his usual well-kempt, tailored self. There was the choppy hair, which came close to his scalp in parts and stuck out on end in others. Then there were the bruises, most of which were old and fading, with the fresh ones from that morning's fight blossoming at the corners of his mouth and on his wrists. He was thinner, of course, and the trainers he had salvaged from a bin were peeling apart at the toes. Jeans with the knees torn through and an oversized army jacket paired with a plain wife-beater had turned him into something of a hoodlum. Finally there was the layer of drying blood around his fingernails and, apparently, on the back of his head and neck.

"Oh, it's gotten all over your lovely shoes as well!" Harry clapped her hands together at the sight of more blood staining the laces of his trainers. It took Sherlock a moment to realize that she was being facetious. "You must have taken a nasty spill."

"…I thought you were still trying to get your head around 'all this'."

She laughed dryly. "Call it a Watson coping mechanism. Trust me, the shock'll hit me. And then I'll either be crying, or I'll punch you a few more times."

This didn't sound right to him. "Why would _you_ be crying? You don't even know me. And I'm alive, not dead."

The look that Harry gave him was a strange mixture of disgust, pity, and distrust. "Jesus. John really wasn't kidding about you."

Sherlock coughed uncomfortably. "Where are we, exactly?"

A heavy sigh let him know that she wasn't satisfied with his deflections. "Castletownshend. West Cork. Do you _really_ not know where you are? I thought you were supposed to be observant."

"I was dropped off here last night by a source. It was dark out," he pouted. Sherlock let another stream of smoke filter through his teeth before turning to her incredulously. "Ireland? Really?"

"You're kidding me."

Sherlock snubbed the cigarette out in the dirt. "I've been traveling rather a lot recently. Or did you think that I'm dressed like this to look 'cool'?"

"I don't know what to think."

Harry had dragged him into her smart car when the dinner rush started to hit the pub. Something about "privacy" and "a more fitting atmosphere". They said nothing for the rest of the ride, both of them chain-smoking out of the sunroof and seemingly entranced by the enchanting Irish views. Sherlock would fake interest in anything if it meant avoiding eye contact with this particular woman. It wasn't long before she slammed on the brake, rocking them back and forth in front of a decaying seaside graveyard.

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "This is what you call a more fitting atmosphere?"

"You tell me."

"I didn't realize your opinion of me was so low."

She threw her door open and let loose another shoulder heaving sigh. "It's not that," Harry insisted, "it's the only place here that I like."

"Why _are_ you here then? In Ireland."

"I dunno. A girl. Getting away from London. Getting away from family."

They clambered out of the car simultaneously and Sherlock stared at her for a moment over the roof. "You mean John."

"Yeah, well," she rubbed the back of her neck somewhat guiltily, "maybe it was just difficult standing on the sidelines. I'm not the biggest help with these emotional things."

"That's what you want to talk about, isn't it?"

"Not really. I _want_ to be back at the pub finishing my crossword puzzle and ordering dinner, to be totally honest." She rubbed her toe into the ground along the edge of a gravestone.

"…You're not in the least bit happy to know I'm alive, are you?"

Harry whipped towards him, and now there was definitely anger in her eyes; it was the same kind of impatience and frustration that he remembered John holding onto when he stormed out of 221B.

"Of course not! You think it's _healthy_? For you to be gone for, what, _three years_? And to show up out of the blue…I think you should take the next plane back to wherever you were hiding and leave. My brother._ Alone_."

The small voice in the back of his head that had been dormant for so long was making itself heard again. _Don't say anything. Just let her get angry. She deserves it. You deserve it._

"Is this the part where you hit me?" he sneered, "or are you going to cry instead?"

He was, in fact, shocked when Harry Watson's face fell and she sank to her knees in the dirt. There was a rough, hiccupping sound, and he realized that she was having some sort of emotional breakdown. Shock, wasn't it? That's what she had jokingly said would overcome her. Awkwardly, he bent over and put a hand on her shoulder. _This is what they do, isn't it? When they want to comfort someone._

"You don't even…you don't even know me." He was repeating himself. "Please…stop crying."

She was trying to cough out some sort of response but it was completely unintelligible. He sat back on his heels and waited for her to calm down, every now and then half-heartedly patting her back. _I should film some subjects crying. If_ I_ can squeeze out a fake tear, who knows what the victim's loved ones are really feeling. There must be some tells. _He was about to ask Harry what the best method was for inducing genuine tears when she managed to choke out a response.

"I'm not crying because of _you_, you twat. God…I. I don't know how to explain this to someone like you."

He wasn't sure, but Sherlock thought that this might have been an insult. "No. I think I understand. It's to do with John, isn't it?"

Harry stood herself up and dusted the dirt off with a sniff. "Brilliant deduction. Yeah. My brother."

She perched upon one of the gravestones. They were thin, brittle, and toppling—a cobwebbed corner of Sherlock's brain reminded him that this area was an epicenter for the Potato Famine. Not Castletownshend, no, but the larger town nearby. What was it called? Why did it matter?

"Skibbereen!"

"Wha?"

He grinned at her, eyes dancing. "That's where we're near, isn't it? Skibbereen, oh yes!"

Harry gaped at him for a moment. "Sure…what does that mean?"

His brow furrowed. "I have absolutely no idea. Something about John."

"He was coming out to visit next month."

"Of course! Oh, it's so simple! Skibbereen, you came here as children! He rambled on about it once, just endless chatter. _You_ had to come to Cork to be with your partner, so you moved to the only part of Ireland you knew. _That's_ why the assassin was here, he wasn't lying low, he was lying in _wait_. For John, when he came to visit. Incredible. So they must have finally pieced together that I'm alive."

"_Assassin?_ What on earth are you talking about?"

Sherlock waved her aside. "It's nothing, it just explains my running into you. The assassin is still dead. I must have deleted that prattle about John and his summer vacations…followed the lead without even thinking about it."

Harry was rubbing her temples. "I'll leave this for John to puzzle out. I don't need to—no, I don't _want_ to know about any of it."

"I thought you very specifically didn't want me to see John again."

"It doesn't matter what _I_ want. It's his decision, and he _probably_ wants to see you again. Most likely. Who knows with him. I tried to stand in for his shrink, but he's always been a real mess."

Sherlock snorted. "John? He's not exactly complicated."

"Have you _completely_ forgotten what he's like? He got shot in the shoulder and started limping. He falls apart when he's not getting chased by criminals…and don't think I can't read between the lines. The things he's done for you."

He didn't need to think about that right now. Truth be told, he _had_ forgotten what John was like. The particulars of his facial expressions, his odd preference for violence and adrenaline, the things they used to fight over, the things they used to bond over. Harry was dredging these memories up from the mires of his mind, unbidden. Of course, forgetting John was completely intentional, although perhaps on a slightly subconscious level. He couldn't delete the memories of John, but he could tuck them away and bury them in the minutia of his search for Moriarty's men. Now he was recalling the 'emotions' (the word was spat out bitterly even in his thoughts) that had plagued him towards the end of Moriarty's game, the ones that had been making their presence known in subtle ways from the first day he started lodging with John. He had been reaching from the roof of St. Barts because he knew what this would do to John, because he didn't want to give up the structure and contentment of his new life at Baker Street, because he would _miss him. _Miss John. _I don't understand. Why would it upset _you? He had lied to him in the hopes that John would hate him enough not to mourn him. Even as he spoke, he knew that it wouldn't work. John refused to listen to him, and he suddenly felt the warm touch on his wrist as he lay on the pavement. _Jesus, no_. He looked at that same vein that John had laid his fingers upon, half-expecting to see them again, but all that was there now was a ring of mottled yellow-green bruises.

When he looked up again, he was embarrassed to see Harry's expression shifting into one of pity. He wasn't sure why, but he preferred the anger. It felt right, like submerging himself in a scalding bath.

"Come on. We'd better book a flight from Cork."

"We?"

"Well. I'm not going to let you handle something as emotionally delicate as this on your own."

"Delicate as what, exactly?"

"As letting him know that he's been making himself miserable for three years for no fucking reason, dickhead."


	3. Bloody Marys

**Sorry, this is a short chapter, isn't it? Harry's perspective! I'm basically turning her into an OC, aren't I? Oops. Anyway, I figure it'll be a bit easier than writing Sherlock and it's about time we got some emotion up in here. That is, unrepressed emotion. Bonus points to anyone who gets the reference to one of the original Arthur Conan Doyle stories. Preferably without the aid of Google!**

Harry knew that it wasn't exactly 'responsible' to abandon her fiancé the way she had. Particularly since the only note she left behind was a brief text message: _wnt to londn family emergnc sorry sorry sorry! b back soon. _Then again, she had a right to this sort of behavior…Angela had dragged her to Cork, hadn't she? And when she finally agreed to come, Harry had realized too late that she would be spending Monday through Friday holed up in Castletownshend by herself, trying desperately to get some writing done. A trip to London would do her good. _Only it's not exactly a holiday, is it? _Harry glanced over at Sherlock, who was resting his head against the window of the plane. He wasn't quite asleep, but he didn't look responsive. Harry had an annoyingly strong maternal instinct, and it flared up at the most inopportune moments.

He wasn't well. What would John say if she showed up with his friend in this condition?Did it really matter? John would be overjoyed (most likely) no matter what Sherlock looked like, and then he could take care of the health aspect. He was a doctor, after all. But when was the last time Sherlock ate something besides crisps and toast?_ God, stop it. It isn't important. _

"Hey. You asleep?" He didn't say anything, but his eyes were open. Against her better judgment, Harry shook his shoulder. "Oi. You want something to drink?"

At that he sat up. "Hmm? Where?"

She had to repress another sigh. It was like talking to a child. "From the trolley. It's coming round."

"What are you—"

"Never mind, I've got it. Jesus." To the attendant she simply said, "two Bloody Marys and a gin and tonic please. And some of those little dry biscuits."

"I'm sorry ma'am, it's one drink per passenger."

Why was the world trying to fight her at every corner she rounded?

"The gin and tonic is mine. The Bloody Marys are for him." She jammed her thumb towards Sherlock and tried to muster as much outrage as she could. "Do you happen to have fresh tomatoes on this flight? Because we're connecting from Venezuela and my boyfriend is very _clearly_ suffering from malnutrition."

Sherlock raised his eyebrows at this, but the flight attendant was already digging through her cart. She held up a can of tomato juice uncertainly. "Will this do? I'm sorry, but we simply can't allow more alcohol. It's a safety concern."

"It's fine, Harriet."

"You can't be serious. Do you honestly expect him to—" she was interrupted by Sherlock reaching over for the can. "Sherlock!"

"It's _fine," _he hissed, "leave it."

The flight attendant hurried off looking slightly ruffled as Sherlock struggled with the tab of the can. Harry stared in disgust as he swallowed nearly half of it in one go. He finally lowered it and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his ratty jacket.

"When I say 'it's fine', I mean _shut up._ You can't say my name. If you hadn't noticed, my passport is registered to a Neville St. Clair." His voice was so low that Harry could feel its vibrations better than she could hear it.

"I thought they finished clearing your name a year ago. You're not a criminal anymore, are you?"

"I'm still legally dead. Not sure if that lands you on the no fly list, but they shredded my passport."

"If I have to call you Neville, than you have to slow down on that tomato juice. It's revolting."

Sherlock flashed a sarcastic smile at her and drained the rest of the can before speaking again. "You were lying to that woman. You wanted two drinks." "So what if I did?"

"Believe it or not, I _do_ have malnutrition. So thank you very much for the vitamins." He dipped his biscuits in the Bloody Mary, and Harry thought she might throw up.

God almighty. They would be landing in London in half an hour, and it still seemed like an eternity stretching before her. _The sooner I pass him off to John, the better_.

"You know," she said, unable to contain it any longer, "he really glorified you."

"Who did?"

"Who do you think? John."

"Hmm," he muttered, "I did warn him against that."

"Yeah, well. It's more than that. I mean, you really are _unbearable_. I don't…understand. It's not…forget it."

She didn't want to make eye contact, and when she did she felt her throat catch. He was looking her with complete confusion, unable to comprehend what she was leaving unsaid. With anyone else, the implications could be picked out, and they would leave it at that. Harry could only hope that Sherlock existed within a sort of buffer zone, and that the words that sounded so hurtful to her wouldn't bruise him so easily.

"I told you already…he's a wreck. And it's been three years."

"You did mention that. Although I'll have to see for myself what sort of 'wreck' you mean."

"It's only…now that I've met you, I don't understand _why_. Why's he so torn up over _you_?" It sounded more spiteful when she said it out loud.

As biting as they were, her words couldn't have been more painful than Sherlock's reply, murmured to himself as though he were puzzling through a case. Devoid of any emotion save for mild curiosity.

"Yes. I've been wondering that myself."


	4. Playing Hooky

**This is a John-centric chapter, and it's got Mary Morstan in it. Actually, her name is Mary Misra in this incarnation. I'm positively sick of all of the white people in all of these fanfictions, and this is London after all. How could there possibly not be an Indian person in the cast? **

**I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to update this little thing! I'm very pleased with the number of you who have subscribed or added this to your favorites, so thanks! Feel free to leave me any tips or comments, as the honest truth is that I don't entirely know where all of the story is going. I've got the main points fixed, and there will eventually be a mystery (I'll have to base it on an existing canon since I have no experience writing mysteries. Maybe the empty house, although that's not much of a mystery). I'm trying to stick to some important canon details, and unfortunately that means that this won't be an entirely happy story. Sorry about that. **

John was at the Wallace Collection when Harry phoned. He had never been one for museums; for whatever reason he had always been the kid on school trips who found one or two paintings to mindlessly stare at and not be bothered. He was more than making up for it now. Maybe one a week or so he had been finding a new museum to traipse through. He never lingered on any particular work for long, but rather absorbed them as he wandered. It was a distraction, a sad little coping mechanism (he was fully aware of this), but it was easier than sitting through tightly wound lunches with his coworkers at the clinic. They had welcomed him at first, but the atmosphere had grown chilly when he consistently declined their invitations to the pub and excused himself from their conversations.

_Ah well, _he thought, _things will change eventually. It's going to get easier._

He had been listening to his therapist for once, and had begun picking himself up with little mantras. It seemed to be helping. Although more than anything, it seemed to be his relationship with Mary that was edging him towards contentment. She could make him smile, something that Mrs. Hudson and Greg and Molly hadn't managed for the past three years. He had given them obligatory ones, faking it for their sakes, but Mary was making him _laugh_. Genuine laughs, including his rather embarrassing giggle. When he caught himself, he occasionally fell silent immediately, but that was happening less and less.

_It's the guilt stopping me, but that's ridiculous. Sherlock would have wanted me to laugh! I think. God knows what I've been attributing to him, he might have actually _resented _me for laughing. I wouldn't past him. Wouldn't have. _

He had met Mary at this particular museum; she was just an office worker, but had been filling in for a tour guide one rainy Wednesday that September. It being the middle of the week, John had ended up being the only person in her 12:30 tour, and it had just taken a few minutes before they were walking straight past the masterpieces and chatting about other things entirely. Like politics, and hobbies, and how oh my what a coincidence they were both single and yes Saturday was free. She didn't take sugar in her coffee either.

_Coffee. God. _He had only recently stopped making two cups, as cliche as it was. _I always thought it takes three weeks to break a habit…certainly not three _years.

She didn't know he was at the museum yet. He had been planning to surprise her for lunch, but he found himself picturing a quiet cuppa at Speedy's instead. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy her company, but he hadn't needed as much space as he did now since after Afghanistan.

He jumped when his phone began ringing, and earned himself disgruntled looks from the rest of the patrons- he caught the stink eye of a seven-year-old with her grandmother. _Yeah, just wait until you get a mobile, you'll be texting while you drive and all that, I'll bet my life. _

"John Watson."

Harry's voice came in shrill and tight, the way it always was when she felt guilty about something, "Hi, hi hi! It's Harry. Listen, are you free for lunch this afternoon? Or tea, whichever. About two-ish?" It all came out like one sentence.

"Yesss," he hesitated, "but, er, aren't you in Cork? Why aren't you? I was going to come out for a visit, remember?"

"Oh, that. Well, I'm in London, at the airport. Last minute, but I've got an old university friend coming in from Hong Kong."

"_Old university friend_? You still have those?"

"Yes! Jesus," her outrage had him holding the phone away from his ear. "Why are you whispering?"

"I'm at a museum, Harry! Can we make this brief?"

She snorted. "You?"

John could only sigh at that. "Okay, yeah. I'm free. You can come by the flat, I'm not going to inflict you on the café. It's never done anything to deserve that."

"I was thinking a pub first. Just to catch up."

"Oh, Harry!" he groaned, "you were really doing well!"

"I wasn't going to _drink_," she cried, "have a little faith!"

"…..right."

"Anyway, by 'your flat' you couldn't _possibly_ mean the Baker Street one," she took on a mockingly concerned tone, "I mean, that would be _dangerously_ unhealthy."

"Yeah, I get it. Enough." A thought occurred to him. "hang on, do you mean you want to talk with me other than catch up? How uncharacteristic of you."

"Er, it's just that there was something I wanted to let you know about in person."

"Yeah? What about then?"

Her voice had gone all queer and tight again. "Just, ah, don't make a fuss or anything. I know it's sort of weird but…to prepare you, I suppose you should know that it's to do with Sherlock."

"_What?_" he was nearly shouting. A guard started walking towards him, and he cupped a hand over the phone. "Hang on, it's important!"

"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to step out of the gallery space."

"You're not _going_ to have to ask me, you're asking me!" He knew it was a ridiculous point, but he was mildly hysterical. Certainly baffled- why on Earth would Harry have anything to say about Sherlock?

"Sir," the guard was holding his shoulder and steering him towards the exit, "Please leave immediately."

"Yeah, fine!" he shrugged him off and stumbled into the main hall. He uncovered the mouth piece and hissed at his sister, "what can you _possibly_ mean?"

"What was all that about?"

"Jesus, Harry, pay attention! What d'you mean, 'it's to do with Sherlock'? Are you going to come nag me about getting out more and meeting new people? Again?" There was a long silence, and he took a moment to reign himself in with a deep breath.

"It's not that- " she allowed, "I'll see you soon, so let's just hold off. I've still got the spare key, I can let myself in."

"What spare key?" Now _that_ he would have remembered giving her.

Another pause.

"Mrs. Hudson had one made for me right…after. Just in case."

John dragged a hand down his face and groaned inhumanely. "Yeah. Got it. I'll see you there."

He could hear Harry deliberating; she would make little false starts when she did.

"Hmm. Y- Ah. How _are _you doing? I mean, have you made any new…"

She broke off, and he gave a dry laugh. "Friends? What am I, seven?"

"Well?"

"I have, actually, not that it's your business," John said smugly, "I've got a new girlfriend. I might be able to bring her 'round, if you like."

There was another uncomfortable silence. "Oh."

"_Oh_? I thought you'd be thrilled!"

"No, I- I am! Of course I am. I'm just a little surprised."

"Thanks for that."

"You know what I mean! I…well, I have to go. We'll get to that later. Bye, bye bye."

He hung up without replying. _I can't stand that she does that. Who closes a phone call with _three_ goodbyes? _Exhausted, he slumped onto the staircase and put his head in his hands. _It's fine. Get it together, it's just a visit from your sister. _He drew his palms back slowly, and let out a hiss of air. Mary would know what to do about it. At the very least she could get his blood pressure down. He didn't know what it was about Harry that always set him on edge- it was like dealing with a time bomb. She had such a temper (admittedly, so did he) and he somehow felt like he was constantly driving her towards drinking. _Again with the irrational guilt. It's got nothing to do with you._

He wiped his mind of the anxieties, something he had picked up on almost immediately after the fall. But when he drummed on Mary's counter with a small smile and she turned to greet him with one of her own, her face fell.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Nothing. I thought we could get a quick lunch."

She raised her eyebrows and looked up at him with disbelief. "When you walk in with that dead-eyed look, it's usually to tell me that you're _canceling_ plans."

John managed his best amused confusion. "Dead-eyed? Is that an insult?"

"Oh, be that way. Give me a few minutes to wrap up this paperwork."

She stared at him from across the tiny round table, head unconsciously cocked slightly to the side. John tried to act as though he hadn't noticed, simply fascinated as he was by his chicken salad sandwich. He chewed slowly and glanced out the window, just cutting Mary off as she opened her mouth to say something.

"I took off work early."

"_Again_?" She was exasperated. "John, you should really be putting more time in at the clinic."

He slumped a little in his seat. "Why?" he muttered.

"Why? They could fire you. You're not infallible."

He scoffed. "They're not going to fire me. Look, Harry's coming in for a visit at my flat, and she wanted to meet you." It wasn't quite a lie.

Mary contemplated it. "I can do today. But _only _because I've still got nearly all my sick days. I thought your sister was in Ireland?"

"I dunno," he sighed, "did I mention that I'm going out there, to Skibbereen, in a bit?"

"I think you might've."

"I was thinking…well…if you didn't have plans for that week."

"Are you inviting me?" she put a hand to her cheek teasingly, "oh my, Dr. Watson!"

He grinned uncertainly. "The next step, right? Is it too soon for a joint vacation?"

"Absolutely not." She smiled sweetly and took his hand, "and someone's going to have to keep you from falling into the ocean."

"Mary, please. I'm perfectly capable."

She laughed at that. "You can't tell a Monet from a Renoir! You're like a little lost lamb."

He drew her across the table and gave her a peck. She raised her shoulders in pleasure and giggled into his mouth. John's heart seized a little, and he drew her in closer, knocking a fork to the floor as he kissed her full on the lips and stroked her dark hair from her face. She squeezed his hand and looked at him empathetically as he drew away.

"John...it's going to get better."


End file.
